A filter appliance serves for the cleaning or respectively filtering of a fluid, such as for example of air or oil. For this, the filter appliance generally has a filter element which can be constructed in particular as a ring filter element and is mountable into an associated filter housing. The ring filter element can hereby therefore be replaced if required. Such a ring filter element has, on a lower end disc, an axially protruding pin, which in the assembled state of the ring filter element in the filter housing engages into an associated channel of the filter housing. Said channel can be configured for example as a discharge channel, so that on dismantling of the ring filter element from the filter housing, fluid situated in the filter housing, i.e. in particular oil, can flow out through the channel. Such filter appliances come into use in various applications. This includes, for example, the use in motor vehicles, in which such a filter appliance cleans fluids required for the operation of the motor vehicle. In this case, it is desirable to achieve a sufficient cleaning of the fluid which is to be cleaned. In particular, the quality of the ring filter element plays a decisive role here. It is therefore desirable to only use such ring filter elements which have a corresponding quality and, in particular, are authorized. There exists, in addition, the desire to configure the mounting or respectively the dismantling of the ring filter element into or respectively out from the filter housing in a simple and economically favourable manner.
In order to meet these specifications, it is known from DE 10 2009 049 868 A1 and DE 10 2009 054 523 A1 to provide or respectively configure the ring filter element and the filter housing with associated regions, wherein one of the regions has an axial groove, whilst the other associated region has a guide element, such that the guide element, on the mounting of the ring filter element, is guided along a guide contour adjoining the axial groove, and in the assembled state engages into the axial groove. Only in this state does the pin, arranged on the end disc of the ring filter element, also engage into the associated channel and enable a fault-free function of the filter appliance.
It is disadvantageous here in particular that the mounting or respectively dismantling of the ring filter element into or respectively out from the filter housing is manoeuvred with difficulty. In addition, a corresponding application of force onto the filter appliance, in particular onto the ring filter element can lead to a damage of the guide contour and/or of the guide element, which sometimes can lead to a relative movement of the ring filter element with respect to the filter housing and therefore impairs the fault-free mode of operation of the filter appliance.